Strive For Rest

The Old Testament reading this morning comes from the 21st chapter of the book of Joshua.

I'll begin reading in verse 43. Thus the

Lord gave to Israel all the land that he swore to give their fathers, and he took possession of it, and they took possession of it, and they settled there.

And the Lord gave them rest on every side, just as he had sworn to their fathers. Not one of all their enemies had withstood them, for the

Lord had given all their enemies into their hands. Not one word of all the good promises that the

Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed to, all came to pass. Please remain standing.

The New Testament scripture reading is in Revelation chapter 14 starting in verse 9.

And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice,

If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink the wine of God's wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the

Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest day or night, these worshippers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.

Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus.

And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, Write this, Blessed are the dead who die in the

Lord from now on. Blessed indeed, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors and for their deeds follow them.

You may be seated. Take your

Bibles this morning. Let's turn to Hebrews chapter 4.

You follow with me as I read the first 13 verses of this chapter.

Hebrews 4 verses 1 through 13. Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear, lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.

For good news came to us just as to them, but the blessing they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened.

For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said, As I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest.

Although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way, and God rested on the seventh day from all his works.

And again in this passage, he said, They shall not enter my rest. Since therefore, it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience.

Again, he appoints a certain day, today, saying through David, So long afterward, in the words already quoted,

Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. For if Joshua had given them rest,

God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.

For whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.

Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two -edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

Let's pray. Father, now open the text of Scripture to us in a way that doesn't just give us some facts to learn, but causes us to question our hearts and to look to you only for our hope.

Thank you for this word, which in every situation of life explains things.

Every situation of life gives us understanding, gives us power.

Help us to pay attention to this living and active word this morning, and we'll thank you in Jesus name.

Amen. So what's your dream vacation?

What is your dream vacation? A couple of weeks ago, I got back, or we got back from a week of vacation, a beautiful vacation.

I got up every morning at five o 'clock and went out and picked sweet corn for about three hours every morning, and the breakfast, well, the breakfasts were phenomenal.

Of course they were, because after three hours of work in the morning, you're starving. And so those were good.

Actually, it was a great vacation. We had a wonderful time with the family out there. But dream vacations don't just happen, do they?

They don't just happen. You have to plan where you're going. You got to find and pack the right clothes, and then pack not too much, but not too little either.

You have to find and make reservations at all the hotels you're going to be staying at, or you have to get all the camping equipment together and get all that packed.

Who's going to take care of the house and the pets while you're gone on vacation? So a great deal of effort goes into just relaxing, right?

So it is with the rest that God promises the people of God. You have to strive to enter that rest.

Look at verse 11 again in chapter 4. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.

Now you recall in an effort to show us that Jesus is superior to Moses earlier in chapter 3, he's told us that Moses was a servant in the house.

Jesus is the builder of the house. And he says to us that you are that house if you hold fast to the end, the confidence you held at first in Jesus.

But, and then he launches into his sermon telling you that persevering faith leads to a rest for the people of God.

But he warns you that like the wilderness generation, you're in danger of hardening your heart and not achieving that rest.

Last week we saw that the rest remains and that you must be careful lest you fall short.

This in our text this morning, he tells you that you must strive to enter that rest.

Last week be careful that you don't fall short. This week strive to enter that rest.

I'm gonna read our text another time this morning. Verses 6 through 13. Since therefore it remains for some to enter it and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, again he appoints a certain day.

Today saying through David so long afterward in the words already quoted today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.

For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then there remains a

Sabbath rest for the people of God. For whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.

Let us therefore strive to enter that rest so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two -edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account.

Now verses 6 through 10 funnel you down to verse 11. Those verses tell you these are the you need to know these things so you strive.

And so they funnel us down to verse 11. The pastor communicates those truths in order to move you to action, in order to encourage you to strive to enter that rest.

And so the whole part, the whole purpose of this passage is for you to strive to enter that rest.

Now the first thing he says in verses 6 through 8 is strive because a rest remains. You need to strive for it because there remains yet a rest of God.

Again, the theme of this sermon comes through. A rest remains, verse 6. I can get away with saying the same thing every week because the text is doing that, right?

I'm sure you'd get tired of it if I did that. But he's doing it again. He's telling you there's a rest that remains and he reasserts that again that those who believe enter the rest.

Not only that, but that those who do not enter, do not enter because of disobedience, the implication being so don't disobey.

Strive for obedience. Now notice again, I want you to notice again the connection between faith and obedience.

If you believe the good news, you will step out in obedience. Right? Notice he says here they didn't enter because of disobedience.

Earlier he's told us they didn't enter because of unbelief. What's the connection? Well, the connection is the fact that remember the wilderness generation standing on the very banks of the

Jordan are told go in and take the land. They had the good news had been preached to them.

I have given you this land by covenant to your forefathers. I have promised to drive out the inhabitants before you.

I'm giving you this land. So march in and take it. It's guaranteed. But what did they do?

They stood on the banks of the Jordan and refused to go into the land. Right?

How do you know they didn't believe? Because they didn't obey. They did not obey.

They stood at the edge of the Jordan. That disobedience revealed their unbelief.

They were disobedient. Now the rest is still open. This rest is still open to the faithful, but closed to the disobedient.

And so it still exists because it's still open. It still exists. Now, one of the favorite things

I'd love to do and haven't done it for a couple of years is go to the Iowa State Fair. What a phenomenal thing that is.

I loved going to the state fair in Iowa. Let's say you let's just say you're saying, OK, I'm going to go into Des Moines and I don't know.

I can't remember the dates. Is the fair open today? So you go and you walk up to the gates and you see some people are turned away because they don't have tickets.

But the people with tickets get in. What does that tell you? The fair is still going, right?

It hasn't come to an end. The fair is still open. And so because people enter it, people are disobedient, don't.

But the faithful do. We know that it's still open. Now, not to put too fine a point on it,

God says the opportunity to enter is still available. OK, I don't know about you.

I'm getting the point here. There's a rest that remains and it's still our opportunity to enter it.

I don't know if you're getting that point, but I sure am. And so in verse seven, he says that opportunity to enter is still available to you.

You still have this opportunity. First of all, how do you notice you still have this opportunity? Because of the timing of the warning.

Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. Now, he said that through David. The warning comes through David 400 years after that incident on the

Jordan. The warning about missing the rest comes from God centuries later.

And so it's clear the opportunity still exists. It existed for them. But again, he says today.

It's called today. You know, you can still achieve the rest because it's still today.

Right. So you have a favorite Taco Bell right up the street from you. You go there all kinds of times.

You love Taco Bell. But through no fault of its own, it gets enough business. Somehow the central office has determined that they're going to close this

Taco Bell. And so you go up there and you see, well, it's going to it'll go all the way till five o 'clock tomorrow.

But it's today. Right. You still can get your

Chalupa. It's still today. And that's what he's saying to us here.

It's still today. Today still is there. You have the opportunity still, but the warning also still applies.

It's still today. So do not harden your hearts. Do not let sin's deceitfulness harden your heart so that you walk away from the promises and the commands of God.

It's today you can still enter. It's today. Still take warning.

And listen to me. God addresses you. Why is the writer saying.

It's still today. Because he wants you to get the warning. Listen, the scriptures have not been written to give us a history of people long ago and far away.

The scriptures have been written to address you. God doesn't just intend this warning for Israel at the

Jordan and for David and his subjects in 1000

BC. Right. He still intends it for you.

You listen that today continues to the present. The rest is still available, but the warning is still there.

You pay attention to it. But someone objects and says, wait a minute.

God says that the next generation that went in with Joshua got that rest.

I mean, we heard it this morning from Joshua 21 verses 43 through 45.

Listen to what again, listen to what the writer of Joshua says. Thus, the Lord gave to Israel all the land that he swore to give to their fathers, and they took possession of it and they settled there.

And the Lord gave them rest on every side, just as he had sworn to their fathers.

Not one of all their enemies had withstood them, for the Lord had given all their enemies into their hands. Not one word of all the good promises that the

Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed. All came to pass. So why in the world does he say the warning is still there, that the rest still remains?

It says right there, he gave Joshua and his people rest. What do you do with that? Well, listen, the conquest, if you remember, as you read through your

Bibles, the conquest of Joshua gives way to what? The turmoil and the conflict of judges, not to mention all the wars and everything that happened with Saul's monarchy, right?

Do you not remember that? It was only a short time of rest, and then pretty soon, you know what?

You read judges, man, you read judges. There's all kinds of hacking and healing going on in that book, right?

Man, it's bloody. Honestly, after preaching revelation,

I think the last book I'll ever preach is judges. Oh, man, there is anything but rest in that book.

So what's going on? The rest cannot be narrowed to a possession of Canaan and to short -lived respite from warfare.

It has to be more than that. It has to be more than that. Nor did the rest come in David's time.

David is warning his people, don't harden your heart, but rest did not come in David's time.

Although in 2 Samuel 7, verse 1, we read, the king lived in his house and the

Lord had given him rest from all his surrounding enemies. But David talks as if the rest is still available.

What is going on? A writer has told us the object of God's rest is his rest.

A future destination, a future destination of unthreatened and uninterrupted communion with God.

That's what he intended, unthreatened and uninterrupted communion with God, who has always been resting from his creative labors.

That's what God intended. And those rests that they experienced in the

Old Testament for as short a time as they did were merely pointers to a greater rest that was still to come.

They were pointers to that rest. Now, you see the writer doing this a lot in this book.

The Old Testament's always pointing forward. Look at Hebrews 11 for a moment, just to give you some examples of how he's thinking, or more to the point, how

God sees the plan of redemption as he lays it out.

Chapter 11, verses 8 through 10, By faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance.

And he went out not knowing where he was going. By faith, he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob.

Heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is

God. Even Abraham knew, OK, God's promised me this. I'm not seeing it exactly.

There must be something else. And then look at verse 13. These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.

For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they'd gone out, they would have had opportunity returned.

But as it is, they desire a better country that is a heavenly one.

Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. So there's a sense here in which a writer is saying, yes, there was a rest, but it wasn't the rest of God.

It wasn't this uninterrupted rest. It wasn't this unhindered rest. That is still open.

Those other rests just point forward. They say, ah, it's not quite there. There's something more.

And so he tells us, strive to enter that rest because it still remains for the taking.

Strive, why? Because it's still there. There's still ways to go.

Then he goes on in verses nine and 10. He says, strive because it's a Sabbath rest. Strive for that rest because of what kind of rest it is, verses nine and 10.

Now, notice he uses a word. It is a Sabbath rest for the people of God.

Now, we equate the word Sabbath with cessation of all work, resting, relaxing.

But I also would suggest to you that most of all, most of all, we think don't you dare do any work on the

Sabbath or you'll get it. Isn't that right? Isn't that kind of how we look at the

Sabbath? Remember the story of the guy picking up sticks on the Sabbath? They just going around picking up sticks to start a fire.

What happened to him? A bunch of people, the people of Israel gathered around him and stoned him to death, right?

And then in Jesus' day, the Pharisees had made the Sabbath such a burden with all the rules, making sure you rested, right?

But this Sabbath rest, interesting word. It's only used here in the entire

New Testament, and it seems to have the idea. It's actually one word. Sabbath rest is actually one word, and it carries with it the idea of celebrating

Sabbath. There's no idea of any kind of trouble for violation rather than mere cessation from labor.

It is a celebration of the joy and freedom we have with God. It's the ultimate

Sabbath, the true Sabbath, the wonderful Sabbath. What's a relaxing day for you?

What's a relaxing day? You know what it is for me? I love mowing the lawn. I absolutely love mowing the lawn. I don't, my grandkids are not to mow the lawn to help us out.

I mow the lawn. I mow the lawn, I love it because I get to listen to my books. They are better than anywhere else, right?

I love to mow the lawn. I don't know what it is for you. Maybe you get to work in your shop. You get to work in your wood shop, right?

You get to do things that you want to do. You love doing that sort of thing. And maybe you're sitting on the front porch on a sunny, cool day reading the book you've always wanted to read.

There's no turmoil, there's no job. It's just sheer enjoyment of the day.

That's what he's driving at here. That's the Sabbath rest that awaits us. It's sheer joy.

No worries, right? Sheer, uninterrupted, unhindered, unthreatened joy.

And then verse 10, he says it again. It's God's rest. And so like God, we will rest from our labors.

God, since that seventh day millennia ago, has rested from his creative labors.

God did not rest from those labors, by the way, because he was worn out and exhausted. Afraid that's what a lot of people think.

Oh, God rested. Yeah, that was a lot of work creating everything. I bet he was tired. No, he wasn't tired at all.

He rested because he had completed his work. He had completed his work.

There was nothing more to create. There was nothing more to call into existence. It was all done.

It was it. And so it will be for us. We will have completed our work.

There will be nothing more for you to do, right? Kind of get a hint of that in the text we heard from Revelation, right?

They're in this rest. Those who have died in the Lord no longer have to labor.

Now, we, on the other hand, will rest from our exhausting labors in the wilderness of this broken and hostile world.

But it will be sheer enjoyment. It will be like God. Everything will be done. Everything will be completed.

There's nothing more to do. Just nothing but sheer joy in the rest. That's what awaits us.

So he says to us, strive to attain that rest since you know what that rest is gonna be like.

Is that worth striving for? Strive for that. And then the last thing he tells us in verses 11 through 13 is strive in the open.

Strive in the open. Our pastor now tells us that we must strive, and that only happens in light of the work of God's word as it exposes our hearts and in light of the fact that God knows us intimately.

Strive in the open with the word of God exposing your heart and knowing that God knows everything about you.

Now, remember, that rest comes as we strive. That's what verse 11 is saying.

That rest comes as we strive. And that shouldn't surprise us. Jesus actually told us this a long time ago.

He said, enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter it are many.

For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

Now, he's not saying that it's hard because God's a hard taskmaster.

He's saying it because we live in a world that is always seeking to seduce and entice us and to conform us into its image and to do all kinds of things.

That's what makes it hard. It's not that Jesus is a hard taskmaster. It's that we live in the wilderness where it's very, very difficult to cut off those seductions and to move away from them.

And so he says to us, you must strive, you must strive. And I think in the context here, he's saying something like this.

You've got to strive if you don't want to develop a hard heart that will lead you to disobedience.

You've gotta strive so that you don't develop a hard heart that keeps you from God's rest.

Remember what he said in chapter three, verse 12, and I think this is a key verse. In chapter three, verse 12, man, this verse really opens up everything for me.

It says, take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from the living

God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it's called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

Sin always entices, sin always promises something. Sin is always saying there's gold at the end of the rainbow, go for it this way.

And we go for it and it deceives us. And sin says, okay, you didn't quite do it right.

Do it this way. And so you go for it. And pretty soon the deceitfulness of sin hardens your heart, you see?

And so he says, you've got to strive. You've got to strive.

You have to fight the desires that so easily capture your attention. Take the easy way out.

Take the easy way out. Hey, pleasure. What are we hearing all the time?

We live in a world that says to you, pleasure is the greatest good.

Your personal freedom is the standard by which to judge everything.

If you want fulfillment, live with whatever you desire. No one has the right to tell you you can't do what you want to do or be what you want to be.

Oh no, don't let anybody tell you you can't be what you want to be. That's not their right.

That's only you, right? What's that gonna do?

It's gonna harden your heart. You've got to fight the world which constantly opposes

God and seeks to form your thinking and your allegiances. The world, our desires battle within us.

The world entices us from outside. The world is constantly telling you, go this way, don't, no, that's so hard.

Do this instead, right? And then if that's not all, there's the forces of darkness that are arrayed against us,

Satan and everything else. All of these are intent on moving you away from faith and obedience.

They're all intent on moving you away from those things and so you must strive. You must strive to persevere in the faith and you've got to do the hard work of encouraging other

Christians to endure. Hey, then none of this is just between God and me.

In fact, I would suggest to you that most of our Christian life is not just between God and me.

It's us and God. And not only do we have to do the hard work striving to persevere in faith, but we also have to do the hard work of encouraging one another to endure as others may be slipping away in the deceitfulness of sin and towards a hard heart.

What are you gonna do to help? That's hard work, isn't it? That's striving and so we need to strive.

And then verse 12. Now, we often take this verse to tell us how powerful the word of God is and it is and it's okay to use the verse that way, but in this context, he's saying something very clear here and that is you must strive with scriptures in hand because scriptures are going to reveal your heart.

You have a heart that may be hardened. So you need the scriptures in hand in order to keep you from that hard heart.

How will you keep your heart from sin's hardening effects? Only as the word of God does its living, active, penetrating work.

That's how you keep from a hard heart. The scripture he says is living and active.

It has an inherent power that cannot be thwarted in its work.

It's living and active, it cannot be thwarted. It has this dynamic power.

It's no mere self -help book. It's no mere self -help book, folks.

You know what? And I love it. The kids often come into my office, right? And they do this number.

They come into my office and they go, pastor, have you read all these books, right?

I tell them no, most of them, but not all of them. But I can pull any one of those books down from my shelves and they won't do what the

Bible can do. I love history. I think history's important.

We don't study history, we won't understand the present, but there isn't one history book. And there's a few good ones out there.

I could recommend them to you, but this is not the time or the place. But none of those books have a living dynamic power that will change me or change the people who read them.

What the Bible does is it takes us apart. It gives us the ability to understand things that we never understood before.

It gives me answers to the deepest questions I have, even the deepest questions of my heart.

Why am I doing this? Can tell you that. It not only does that, it has power to change you all in the text of scripture.

In fact, he says, it's like a sword that cuts so deep and so accurately that you find out things about yourself that even you didn't know.

Notice what it divides. He uses these couplets, soul and spirit, joints and marrow, thoughts and intents.

Now, he's not trying to tell you what you're made up of. He's not trying to tell you you're a three -part person, body, soul, and spirit.

I mean, if we did that, we'd have to say body, soul, spirit, thoughts, intents, right?

That's not what he's doing. What's the difference between soul and spirit? Nothing.

What's the difference between thoughts and intents? Nothing. What's the point?

The Bible can divide that which is indivisible. It is that penetrating.

The very things that no one can divide, the Bible can. It can be so incisively important, and it can explain you and what you're doing and where you're headed more accurately than any psychological textbook or system that's out there.

You need this book for keeping on the path to your

Sabbath rest. I remember one time I spoke to a men's group. They asked me to come and speak to this men's group, if I remember right, because this was years ago.

I spoke on pride, and I took a text from the scriptures, and I opened it up.

A guy came up afterwards and said, wow, that was so good.

Have you had training in psychology or something? Now, what was inherent in that statement?

He had found explanations he had never dreamed of, and he thought it was because I knew a lot.

But the only thing that happened was I just explained a text of scripture, and it opened him up in a way that he hadn't been opened up before.

And he couldn't explain it. And I said, no, it's not me. It's not what training

I've had. It's the Bible. This is what did it, you see?

So listen, this book opens you up. This book opens you up.

But not only that, in verse 13 he says, but then you're open before God. Not only does the book open you up, but you're open before God.

You're actually open before God. You cannot hide from God. I remember one time after we'd been out on the farm in Iowa, we were leaving.

Calvin had been out there for a few weeks. Well, probably a month or more. We tended to let them be on the farm for quite a while.

And so we're gonna leave. We're all packed up. We're all in the car. And I said, where's Calvin? I'll never forget that day.

We could not find him. You know why? He did not wanna leave. But we couldn't find him.

Now, why can't you find someone? Well, for one thing, you don't know where they're going.

Another thing, they could be in the cornfield, totally hidden from view.

There's all kinds of reasons why we can hide things. But you cannot hide from God.

You cannot hide from Him. It's impossible. He knows everything.

In fact, our Hebrews, our pastor, he gets almost embarrassingly graphic when he says, what about us?

All are naked and exposed. It's as if you got no clothes on.

I mean, come on. I know, we all wear clothes because we should. But we all know that clothes also serve a purpose of hiding our imperfections.

No one knows about your varicose veins, right? No one knows about the birthmark on your thigh.

Right? No one knows about your awful, ugly feet.

Right? No one knows that, why? Because you can hide those things. You can cover them up, but not with God.

It's like you're naked before Him. There is nothing, absolutely nothing you can hide from God.

You can start down the road to sin's deceitfulness, and your heart can start getting hard, and you can hide that for quite a while from everybody.

You can keep that from people. They'll never know. Well, God sees all the imperfections.

You cannot cover any of them up in His sight. And it's so much so that when you stand before Him, you will not say, you will not say, what, me?

A hard heart? You gotta be mistaken. No, God won't be mistaken.

See, He can see it. He can see every step you're taking.

Every step of deception that's gonna harden your heart, He sees it. Others may not,

He does. What's the point? What's the point? The point is, strive for that Sabbath rest in the open.

With the Bible opening you up, and you open before God. Keeping all that in mind.

That's what you must do. You must strive for God's rest in the open.

Now look, we are involved right now in a wilderness war. We live in the wilderness of a broken world where suffering happens, where it's not easy.

And we're involved in a warfare against the forces of the world, the flesh, and the devil.

But God has promised us rest from it all.

But you're not gonna just sail into that rest without effort. You gotta strive for it.

You've gotta strive for it. You've got to walk the narrow way. But listen, you can do it with the

Bible open, and you open before God. And you remembering all that He has done for you.

What has our writer told us? He has told us already in chapter two that we have a

Savior who took on flesh and blood, became one of us so He could be a faithful high priest.

You see, is it gonna be hard? Yes, yes it will be.

But you will be empowered. You will be energized as you remember that the one to whom you must give an account has walked the same path.

He's a faithful and merciful high priest because He's walked your, so we can strive.

It's within our grasp. And we can strive until we attain that rest.

God help us to do that. Striving against a hard heart by believing the promises of God and looking to a great

Savior. Father, thank You for Your Word. How good it is to see that You don't leave us in the dark about anything.

You tell us about these difficult things that we might look to You. We thank

You for Your Word which gives us, not just tells us what's wrong, but tells us what to do about it.

And gives us the power to do it. Thank You that You're a God who sees everything.

Lord, that doesn't cause us to fear and to cower before You. It causes us to say,

God knows my heart. God knows my heart. It causes us then to turn to this very same

God for help. So God help us to strive.

All of us this week will be striving against the deceitfulness of sin.

Give us the power to fight for Your glory in Jesus' name.